"nunciaturus esset*." Thus softly do these Commentators speak, in their embarras to reconcile this representation of Job to his traditional Character for patience. The Writing then and the Tradition being so glaringly inconsistent, we must needs conclude, 1. That the fame of so great Patience arose not from this book. And, 2dly, That some other Character, shadowed under that of Job, was the real cause of the Author's deviation from the general Tradition.

And this Character, I say, was no other than the JEWISH PEOPLE. The singularity of whose situation as a selected Nation is graphically described in the beginning of the book, where Satan is brought in, speaking of the distinguished honour done to Job by his Maker. Hast thou not made a HEDGE about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every sidet? The great point which Job so much insists upon throughout the whole book is his innocence: and yet, to our surprise, we hear him, in one place, thus expostulating with GoD: Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the INIQUITIES OF MY YOUTH. This can be accounted for no otherwise than by understanding it of the PEOPLE: whose repeated iniquities on their first coming out of Egypt, were in every Age remembered, and punished on their Posterity. Again, the twenty-ninth chapter is an exact and circumstantial description of the prosperous times of the Jewish People; several parts of which can be applied with no tolerable propriety to the condition of a private man :-"O that I were as in the days when GoD preserved me, when his "candle shined upon my head, and when by his LIGHT, I walked through darkness: As I was in * On the same place.

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Chap. i. ver, 10.

Chap. xiii. ver. 26,

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the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my TABERNACLE:--When I washed my steps with BUTTER, and the rock poured me out "rivers of OIL.-I put on righteousness and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.—I brake the jaws of the WICKED, and pluckt the spoil "out of his teeth.-I CHOSE OUT THEIR WAY, and "sat chief, and dwelt as a KING in the army *." In these words the writer evidently alludes to the pillar of fire in the Wilderness;-The Schekinah in the tabernacle; The land flowing with milk and honey;-The administration of the judges ;-The curbing the ravages of the Philistians;-And the glory of their first Monarchs. Well therefore might the Writer, in his introduction to this speech, call it a PARABLE.

wishes he were as in

This will lead us next to consider the Age, as well as People meant. Job, speaking of his misfortunes, says, For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in safety, neither had Į rest, neither reas I quiet, yet trouble came t But in other places he speaks very differently. He months past, for then (says he) I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand ‡. And again, When I looked for good, then evil came upon me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness §. These things are very discordant, if understood of one and the same person; and can never be reconciled but on the supposition of an allegorical reference to another Character; and, on that, all will be set right. For this disquict, and fear of approaching trouble, was the very condition of the Jews on their first return from the Captivity. Thus Ezra expresseth it: And they set

up the altar upon his bases (for fear was upon them, because of the people of those countries) and they offered burnt-offerings thereon unto the Lord*. And thus Zechariah, who prophesied at this time: For before these days there was no hire for max, nor any hire for beast, neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in, because of the affliction; for I set all men every one against his neighbour†. Job, amongst his other distresses, complains to God;Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me with visions: this, I suppose, refers to the comminations of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who all prophesied at this time, and were very troublesome on that account to the impatient Jews, to whose circumstances only, and spirit of complaint, these obscure words of Job, expostulating with GOD, can agree;-and why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? For now I shall sleep in the dust, and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be There is not a more difficult passage in the whole book of Job; and yet, on the principles here laid down, it admits and conveys this natural and easy meaning,

In thus punishing, thou wilt defeat thy own design. It is thy purpose to continue us a peculiar People; yet such traverses as we have met with, on our return, will soon destroy those already come into Judea, and deter the rest from hazarding the same fortune." Job goes on in the same strain: Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress? that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands? and shine upon the counsel of the wicked? The Jews of this time made this very complaint. I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us ¶? And again, And

now we call the proud happy; yea they that work wickedness are set up; yea they that tempt God are ecen delivered.-But Job goes on,-0 that thou wouldest hide me in the GRAVE, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past; that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me†. By which words, the complaints of the Jews of that time are again referred to; which were, as appears from the words of Job, to this effect: "Would to GOD we had still continued in Captivity [the Grace, which was the very figure used by the Prophets for the Captivity] expecting a more favourable season for our Restoration; or that we might be permitted to return unto it, till the remains of punishment for our forefathers' sins are overpast, and all things fitly prepared for our réception." And in these cowardly and impatient sentiments were they, on their Return, as were their Ancestors, on their first coming out of the land of Egypt; to which, this Return is frequently compared by the Prophets.-Job goes on expressing his condition in this manner: His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle. He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten met. The first part of this complaint evidently relates to the Arabians, the Am monites, and the Ashdodites; who (as Nehemiah tells us) hearing that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, were very wróth, and conspired all of them together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it §. The se cond part relates to their rich Erethren remaining in Malac. iii. 15. + Chap xiv. ver. 13. Chap xix. ver. 12, 13, 14. § Nehemiah iv. 7, 8. Babylon

Babylon, who seemed, by Nehemiah's account, to have much neglected the distressed Remnant that escaped from the Captivity to Jerusalem. Then Hanani (says he) one of my brethren came, he and certaim men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the Captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The Remnant that are left of the Captivity there in the Province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire *.-Job goes on, O that I knew where I might find him [God], that I might come even to Behold I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him . Could any thing more pathetically express the lamentations of a People who saw the extraordinary Providence, under which they had so long lived, departing from them?-From GOD, Job turns to Man, and says, "But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained "to have set with the dogs of my flock. Yea, whereto

his seat.

might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom "old age was perished? For want and famine they "were solitary; fleeing into the Wilderness in former "time desolate and waste: who cut up mallows by "the bushes, and juniper-roots for their meat. They were driven forth from among men (they cried "after them as after a thief) to dwell in the clifts of "the valleys, in the caves of the earth, and in the "rocks. Amongst the bushes they brayed, under "the nettles they were gathered together. They were "Children of fools, yea Children of base men: they Chap. xxiii. ver. 3. 8, 9.

Nehem. i. 2, 3

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